Well we may not have the best decorated house, but we’ll try and have some of the best food that’s for sure. I look forward to Christmas because of all the amazing party nibbles that are about at this time of year. Serious issues around eating proper meals during the festive season, I’ll happily just eat random nibbles all night long. This is combined with the fact that I already know before December’s even begun that I need to go on a diet (yes, waistbands are begining to strain)…

But for the moment, I’m holding off on the dieting and bringing you delicious gingerbread treats instead. The sort of gingerbread that you find in Lapland with cinnamon in. And I love gingerbread houses, but how the heck do you portion that out? Well these mini ones provide an easy solution, and they’ll make really sweet(!) gifts for those of you a bit strapped for cash this winter. They keep well stored in a cool dry place so you could make them a little in advance.

They do take a little while to make, I will say. But nothing great was ever easy. I’m afraid I wasn’t too great with the flash because I was decorating them in the nights after work. I have tried my best to give you a good photo guide on how to do them though. The decoration can be anything you want it to be. I kind of discovered I’d forgotten to buy any decorations, so just made use of the sanding sugar and hundreds and thousands I had in my cake drawers but I’m sure you can you do a better job! If you do make them I’d love you to hook me up with some links to the photos, it’d make my day!

One of the best things about gingerbread is that it’s pretty darn easy to make. I will stress that it’s fairly imperative to have a way or being able to make the dough even thickness when you roll it out. Whether that’s using a special Joseph Joseph Adjustable Wooden Rolling Pin or using a rolling pin with two sticks. If you don’t make the dough even, you’re going to end up with dark bits of gingerbread where it’s thinner (and more breakable due to being brittle) and light bits where it’s thicker and perhaps not cooked enough.

First we’re going to need a template. Copy and paste it into an image editing program. Don’t use Word or try and use the Windows image printing program as they’re both likely to rescale the image. To make nice easy-to-use template pieces, I printed the template out onto a piece of paper, stuck it on some stuff cardboard and then covered each piece with cling film with all the edges stuck together as the top so I wouldn’t mark the gingerbread too much.

Then we’ll get all the ingredients together…

Next we’re going to whip cream and a little vanilla together, then mix with brown sugar, black treacle, bicarbonate of soda, ginger and cinnamon until it looks like this:

Then we’ll add the flour in bit by bit, then you’ll be able to squeeze it together gently to form a dough.

Now we need to roll out the dough evenly and as tightly as possible, cut the pieces out…

Put your pieces onto the baking tray. I’d suggest putting all the roof pieces together, all the sides together etc. It makes it easier to sort things out afterwards.

Bake…once cool we can make up the royal icing to cement it all together and start a little decoration! I put the doors and windows on prior to glueing.

Now we want to begin construction. The easiest way is to “wiggle pipe” so icing onto the base all the way around and leave for a minute. You’ll also want to pipe down the sides of the sides. You don’t need to worry about being neat, we’ll repipe the sides afterwards really prettily.

Then we’re going to gently place a front or back onto the house, gently pressing onto the very edge of the base, then sticking each of the sides to it to support it.

Glue the other sides on and hold together until they can support themselves

Then you can pipe around the outsides of the edges and pipe the tops of the front, back and sides in preparation for glueing the roof on.

Put each roof piece on gently…

Now you can decorate and pipe to your heart’s content. I piped some of the rooves using a star tip!

Here’s some other roof ideas…Piping icicles is really easy, just use a small nozzle, make sure you give a good squeeze onto the roof on the bottom side then pull down quickly,

{Makes 6 mini gingerbread houses}

Adapted from here

Ingredients

• ⅓ cup whipping cream
• ¼ tsp vanilla extract
• ½ tbsp bicarb soda
• ⅔ cup packed brown sugar
• ¾ tsp ground ginger
• ½ tsp ground cinnamon
• ⅓ cup black treacle
• 2¼ plain flour

For the icing…

• 200g royal icing sugar
• a few tablespoons of water

Ingredients

1. Line 2 baking trays with parchment paper or Silpat. Print out your template pieces, stick onto thick cardboard and then cover with cling film to protect dough, making sure that the cling film edges are facing up to prevent denting the dough too much.
2. Preheat oven to 140°C/275°F/Gas Mark 1
3. Whip cream and vanilla in a small bowl until they form soft peaks.
4. In a large bowl, stir together brown sugar, bicarbonate of soda, ginger, and cinnamon. Stir in the black treacle, then beat in whipped cream mixture until well-combined
5. Gradually add flour bit by bit, making sure each time that the flour has been mixed in well.
6. Dust a pastry mat or kitchen surface with flour. Divide dough in half and roll out one portion of the dough until flat – about 6mm thick. I then cut the dough so that the sides we kind of straight as I found this the easiest way to work.
7. Using your templates, you’ll need to cut 12 x roof pieces, 12 x front/back pieces, 12 side pieces and 6 bases. Using a palette knife, lift carefully onto baking trays.
8. Bake for about 20 mins but do check after 15 minutes. They will feel firm and edges will just be beginning to darken. Cool on a wire rack.
9. Once cool, mix up your royal icing. Place your royal icing sugar in the mixer and gradually add water drop by drop until it’s thick but spreadable. Then mix for 3-4 minutes.
10. Follow the visual demonstrations in this post for help with glueing and decorating your gingerbread houses!

Who wants boring cupcakes when you can have something much more Christmassy? These cupcakes looks pretty and taste of Christmas – just by adding a little bit of mixed spices, they’re instantly transformed in an amazing Christmas treat for everyone.

Ingredients

Cupcakes

• 1tsp mixed spice
• 1 portion basic cupcake recipe mix

Buttercream

• 500g icing sugar
• 100g butter, room temperature
• 60ml milk
• Green gel food colouring
• 1tsp mixed spice

To decorate

• Sugar or chocolate stars
• Pearl lustre food spray like here
• Silver balls
• Large round piping tube + piping bag

Instructions

1. Make the cupcakes in pretty cases, mixing in the mixed spice at stage 3 on the instructions for the basic cupcake mixture.
2. To make the buttercream, mix the butter and milk together with the mixed spice. Then add the icing sugar bit by bit making sure the mixture is smooth.
3. Using a cocktail stick, add green food colouring until the desired colour is reached – I went for a lightish green but you could use a more traditional fir green if you like.
4. Place the tube into the piping bag and fill bag with buttercream. Chill in the fridge for 20 minutes.
5. Pipe one large circle around the cupcake to make the base, then fill the middle. Squeeze directly into the middle of the circle and, pushing down gently, squeeze the bag so it forms another level on the tree. Stop before it reaches the size of the lower level.
6. Repeat with the top but pull up gently to create the peak.
7. Top with star and decorate with “baubles” using silver balls. Spray tops with lustre spray to give them a snowy effect.

Tip: Do one cupcake at a time, otherwise if the buttercream dries out it’ll be hard to put the stars and baubles on so easily!

I was too excited when I spotted these pop up stand up cookie cutters in HobbyCraft at the beginning of September. What a perfect choice for Christmas cards from a foodie! In past years I’ve made Christmas cards – one particular yeah I spent about 2 days making Fimo Christmas puddings and used a hell of a lot of glitter glue. This year I can put my piping skills to the test and whether the recipient likes it or not, at least they can eat the result!

In the set you get four cutters and an instruction guide on how to make cookies – unsure yet whether to make cookies from that recipe or to use the ones from my lovely Biscuiteers book!

You can pop down to Hobbycraft and get these, or they’re also available on Amazon: Birkmann Stand-Up Christmas Cookie Cutter Set, 5 Piece

Spending time on mince pies is always worth the effort! Impress your friends by using the snowflake shaped cutter for the cutout. I based this on Nigella’s recipe but added a few ingredients of my own. The addition of spices to the pastry adds some extra flavour.

55mins – Prep time: 40mins – Cooking time: 15mins

{Makes: 12}

Ingredients

• 8oz plain flour
• 2oz lard, diced into small squares
• 2oz cold butter, diced into small squares
• 130ml orange juice
• 1oz icing sugar
• 1/2 grated nutmeg
• 1tsp cinnamon
• 1 tbsp ground almond
• 2tbsp demerera sugar for sprinkling
• 1 jar mincemeat (admittedly I cheated and used shop-bought one, Duerr’s Luxury Mincemeat)
• Splash of amaretto

Instructions

Oven temp: 180°C/320°F

1. Grease and flour a 12 hole bun tin.
2. Sift the flour and icing sugar into a bowl and mix in the nutmeg, cinnamon and almond. Then bit by bit, add the lard and butter, shaking the to cover them in flour. Add Place in fridge for 20 mins.
3. Blitz the mixture in a blender until it goes into breadcrumb form, then add the juice until it just starts to form dough.
4. Knead the mixture of a floured surface, then wrap in cling film and place in the fridge for 10 minutes.
5. Once removed, quarter, then roll out 2 quarters into thin layers with a rolling pin on a floured surface. Cut out circles with a cutter, just larger than the bun tin’s holes.
6. Gently push down the pastry circles into the bun tin with the end of your thumb.
7. Add the splash of amaretto to your jar of mincemeat and shake to mix. Then taking a tablespoonful at a time, put the mincemeat into the pies cases.
8. Roll out the other two quarters into thin layers on a floured surface and use the large snowflake cutter from this PME 3 Pce Snowflake Cutter Set to create snowflakes for the top.

   Tip: Be very gentle with the snowflakes , they’re fragile! We found that pushing out the design right on top of the mince pies worked really well as we didn’t need to move them too much, otherwise they can break.

9. You can brush the tops with a little milk and dust with the demerera sugar for a caramel crunch top.
10. Place in the oven for about 12 minutes.
11. Ensure the mince pies cool down thoroughly as the pastry is quite short and prone to breaking if not left to hard a little before moving.